Got the Samurai all fixed again. Gears are now installed in the stronger steel housing. I even got to do a bit of wheeling in the snow on Saturday… Until my transfer case mounting bracket gave away. So we went back to the shop, drilled it out and bolted it back on. I guess I should buy that stronger t-case mounting system.

So I was wheeling yesterday and I think I have a leak in my axle tube. I was trying to get over some large rocks. As I had my front up on them I got out to stack a few rocks on the other side so I would have a bit os clearance to get over them. I look under the Samurai and noticed some oil on my axle tube where the U-bolds hold the springs on.

After I got over the rock and on level ground I stopped to check it out. Looks like oil is coming out right there at the tube because no oil is anywhere else. It does smell like diff fluid so I know that’s probably it.

I’m going to clean it up and check it out this week. I’ll probably be able to just weld it up to seal the hole.

I’m going to have to get my krawler going very soon… before I kill my Samurai.

It’s going around the blogsphear now and I’m next.

The poor Samurai isn’t doing so well these days. I think I’ve exceeded it’s capabilities. The axle tubes are crushing and ripping open at the spring perches. Now it’s both sides. Time to either swap the axle tube with the spare or concentrate on my crawler.

So for the next few months, it’s full time on my crawler.

Everyone came up for the weekend. Craig, Jason, John, Randy, and I went night wheeling on Saturday night. It was fun. We were out till about 3am. I think I’m still recovering from it.

During the day Saturday I was out in my shop working on my crawler with Randy. We fabbed up some engine mounts. They are almost done. We ran out of time while we were working. I really need to get the gas attachment for my MIG. Flux Core is ugly.

Anyway, all I need to do now is weld them to the chassis and get the engine set in. Almost there. I think next Saturday I’ll have it done. I’m also going to clean up the axles next Saturday as well.

The new D44 is good. It has a bad u-joint that I’ll have to replace, but other than that, it’s good. I’m going to have to start building the truss and get them mocked in.

Welp, back to work…

“The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.”
-Paul Rand

OK, OK, OK….

Everyone has been emailing, phoning, and telling me about this so called Apple Virus.

Lets just set the records straight. It’s not a virus. It’s a Trojan. You have to launch it before it will do something. It will trick you into launching it by pretending that it’s some photos or something.

There has been like 10 infections in the whole Apple community. The media is blowing it all out of proportion. It’s a non-event.

I repeat, it’s a non-event.

Apple still does not have any Viruses. Anyone can write a program to destroy your system, and if they can figure out a way to get you to run it, then it will do it.

It’s like the old IRC trick.
noob: how do I launch Netscape in Linux.
Hacker: type in this, “rm -rf /.”
noob: hey, all my files are gone….click….

It’s no big threat to anything. Yes, people write bad programs. Yes, some people will run them. Me, I’m not worried about it.

So yesterday I was doing a little work in the garage. Part of that work was grinding a piece of metal. While grinding I didn’t put on my safety glasses. Welp… A small chunk went into my eye. I didn’t notice it until a few hours later. We tried to get it out the normal ways, but that didn’t work. Jane said it looked really deep, so off to the doctor we went. About four hours later and about $400 the chunk was removed with the burr tool. Basically they drilled it out. So now I’m half blind in one eye. It should be all healed up in a few weeks.

It’s really hard to look at the computer screen right now. I sure hope it’s better in a few days.

The eye is getting better. Still a bit blurry, but that should clear up in a week or so. It feels normal, so it will be OK soon.

Snow, snow, and more snow. The weather reports that it’s going to be snowing all week. I just want it to warm up and be summer already.

This weekend I should have my engine mounted in my chassis. It’s about time, only took a year…almost. I would have had it last weekend, but I got something in my eye.

Work has been busy. That’s a good thing. Still need to make a bit more to pay my taxes. I’m still about 4k short. I guess I’ll have to get some more jobs in the next 30 days.

The garage is almost done. Just a few more things. I have electricity in there. That makes it way easier to work. No more need to stretch the extension cord out. So now I just need to get the lights installed.

So I still need to figure out how to get my links for my buggy. It’s going to be about $2000 for my links. I’m taking PayPal donations for my buggy.

I posted on PimpMySafari.com awhile back about how I found a hack to remove the tab bar from Safari. I think I actually found the hack on the same site.

Months went by and recently I’ve been receiving a lot of mail about it. People want to know how to do it.

I did a quick Google search and this is what I came up with:

1) Ok you need to have Xcode tools on your Mac.
2) Make a back up of your Safari App incase things go wrong.
3) Right click on Safari and select show package contents.
4) Browse to the english.lproj folder and within that goto the browser.nib folder.
5) Then right click on info.nib and open it with Interface builder.

Now your in the bit that defines how safari looks.
I assume you know how to get the unified menubar look.

6) Click on the TAB BAR section in the window.
7) Then select tools and show inspector, a window will pop up and check the box that says hidden.
Save it and reload Safari and the tab bar should now be gone.

If things go wrong you can revert back to your backed up copy of Safari.

This isn’t the way I did mine. Someone offered up their revised version of browser.nib that I downloaded and used. So if this don’t work… I can’t help you.

The crawler is getting further along. I have the engine finally mounted along with the transmission cross member. I have it setting at ride height right now, and it’s looking really good.

So next I’m going to start on the seat mounts, floor boards, firewall and other small items.

I can’t wait, things are picking up speed and it’s looking good. The only thing I’m worried about is the four links. They are going to cost a lot of money. Money that I don’t have right now. Hopefully I’ll have it in a few months so I can finish sometime in June.

Crossing my fingers.